Acting CEO of the Mackay Whitsunday Regional Economic Development Corporation (REDC) Amanda Camm says while the state government is feeling the brunt of federal cuts to health and education one week after the document was released, eventually the changes will affect local government and their funded agencies.

"Inevitably there's going to be a ripple effect," said Ms Camm.

"Part of my role as the acting CEO has been to have a look at what the future financial sustainability is of the organisation.

"We are heavily reliant on local government funding and heavily reliant on industry funding and we've seen a retraction happen particularly across the mining industry which many of our major partners are from and the first thing that tends to go is membership and contribution to not-for-profit organisations like REDC.

"We are certainly in a critical period right now and discussing our budget."

Impacts and opportunities

Ms Camm says outside concerns for her own organisation, the greatest opportunity for the Mackay, Whitsunday and Isaac regions in this year's federal budget is in the $11.6 billion Infrastructure Growth Fund.

"We will see that return to our region in the way of the Mackay Ring Road for example, so that election promise has been secured," she said.

She says critical infrastructure is key to opening up other industries such as tourism, mining and agriculture and creating jobs.

"What that will bring is greater productivity and efficiency hopefully to our road network and then the gains from that will flow on into our other industries."

Strong Choices in mining

While the mining industry came out as one of the 'winners' of the federal budget, Ms Camm says there are other factors at play.

She says the outcome of the State Government's 'Strong Choices' campaign could determine the future health of the local economy given that the region is 52 per cent reliant on mining.

"At the moment there's appetite across the engagement that's been undertaken to increase [mining] royalties and gambling taxes and we really have to look at that with a really cautious view because the impact of that locally, given our reliance on mining, could be great when we have mining companies at the moment trying to reduce costs.

"Right now, any rise in royalties potentially will set some of those mines over the threshold where they can't operate sustainably."